Ah, the sheer brutality and hilarity of the one-star book review. For some authors, a one-star review on Amazon is enough to send them into a downward emotional spiral from which they never recover. For more self-assured and experienced authors, a hateful review is a sign they’ve arrived, a cause for celebration, a time for merriment and laughter to numb the pain they’re hiding.    

They say a one-star book review says much more about the reviewer than about the actual book—especially if the book is, by wide consensus, good or at least decent. When a reader flings a single star at a novel that averages four, it generally indicates the reader just got dumped by a lover or is angry about a high veterinarian bill or is trying to quit smoking. Sometimes, a one-star-giver is simply an Internet troll incapable of elaborating on the teribullness of the buuk they found so unreedabull. The meanest and thus most entertaining one-star reviews typically are those posted by Internet trolls going through nicotine withdrawal while dealing with a recent break-up and two Rottweilers with hip dysplasia.    

Occasionally, however, a one-star review of a “good” book is spot-on—delivered by a subversive literary genius who refuses to conform to mass opinion and instead cogently points out how and why the book in question is not only highly overrated but complete drivel. These reviewers are to be respected and revered … unless you’re the author of the book in question, or a member of same book club as the reviewer.    

Regardless of the accuracy of or motivations behind one-star book reviews, they are an absolute joy to read. And since we can all use a little more joy in our lives, today I’d like to share the most scathing, sardonic and absurd reviews of some of literature’s most renowned classics. (To enhance your reading pleasure, I’ve kept all the reviewers’ typos intact.) Enjoy! And never forget the powerful words of one of the most celebrated poets of our time: “The haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.”—Taylor Swift

Moby Dick by Herman Melville 

He just rambles on and on about the color of white, the lamp, a piece of wood, oh, and every freakin' whale that there could possibly be in the world. If this was just a novel about them on the boat and going out to sea and trying to catch the "leviathan" then I could understand. Colonoscopies are more pleasant that reading this book. I beg you, find another book to read. (Amazon review, Sept. 22, 2014)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding 

This book stunk. I believe that reality can have deeper meanings, but don't get to deep or you'll drown. The only time you can go that deep and not drown, is with drugs. I never thought Lord of the Flies would attract so many druggies. (Amazon review, May 21, 1998)

Ulysses by James Joyce 

This is a tough book to read unless you understand several languages and are on LSD. I may have thirty or forty more years to live so maybe I'll get through it. (Amazon review, Feb. 9, 2014)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 

BORING. Pride and Prejudice is a very tiresome book. Much dialogue and very little action. Too much love and not enough Jesus. (Amazon review, Jan. 31, 2018)

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 

HORRID!!! This book was literally the worst thing that’s happened in my whole entire life. (Amazon review, Nov. 21, 2008)

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 

Heyyyy I had to read this book for school and it was the worst thing I ever read. A worthless good for nothing piece of junk! Actually it is good for something. I took this book with me to rifle practice and i shot at this instead of the target. I got busted but hey it was worth it. Mail me if you want a picture of my shooting. (Amazon review, Aug. 24, 1998)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 

Well, i had to read this book for english class, so i didn't really enjoy it at all, however it is a good book. (Amazon review, Aug. 30, 2010)

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 

How can anybody like this book? Whoever said this is the best classic ever written must be truly brain-dead. What could be enjoyable about a book that primarily consists of a guide on:

a) how to cut grass,

b) how to hunt bear, and

c) how to abandon your own kid for a gigolo.

If I wanted all that stuff I would have read Farmers Almanac. (Amazon review, date unknown)

Othello by William Shakespeare 

Me doth not thinkift I understandifth this tale. Shakespeare was a real cool person for his time. Unfortunately, his plays are not a real cool thing to read for my time. It is English and I speak English. I just don't happen to speak Old English. Which is really ironic because I am old and speaking English. If you read slowly and put your thinking cap on, you will get the gist of what the story is about. Or! You can just purchase Cliff notes, etc. This story is exciting and full of action...........I think? (Amazon review, Dec. 10, 2012. NOTE: This customer actually gave the book a two-star—not a one-star—review, but I felt it was just too good to not include it here.)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 

This book won the NOBEL Prize? I just can't help it, I need to write another review. This book should be placed in Solitary Confinement for 100 years. This is to save both time and trees used in printing of this book. Do not even dare buy this book even from a 2nd hand bookstore. Believe me, do not waste your money. (Amazon reviews, Feb. 5, 2004)

Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

A hateful experience, 0 stars if that was allowed. After reading over one hundred fifty pages, all I could believe was the story was set during WWII, but I wasn’t sure. The location was England, but I wasn’t sure. I finally threw it against a wall in disgust. I’ve been told the nominating committee (made up mostly of book reviewers) nominated this for the Pulitzer Prize as best fiction. The awards committee (mostly book editors) rejected it as an unreadable piece of crap. I agree with the editors.  (Amazon review, Feb. 11, 1999)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

Boring start, boring end, too many unnecessary things, too many whores. You’d have to be a person who loves Romeo and Juliet to like this book. (Amazon review, March 12, 2018)

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 

O.K., I read it, but I literally have no idea what this book is about. And I’m not reading it again to find out either. Apparently, people like almost anything in life, which is really a sad commentary on the human condition. (Amazon review, July 31, 2000)

Feel free to share some of your favorite one-star book reviews in the comments section below. Also, have you ever written a one-star review of a book? If so, was the book one of mine? If so, what’s your address?

I never judge a book by its cover. I judge it by its first line, or lines. If I’m not blown away or at least utterly intrigued by the end of the opening paragraph, I’m gone.

Call it impatience. Call it ADD. I’m sorry, but life’s too short and my reading list too long for me to spend more than half a minute on a tale that doesn’t grab me by the goodies from the get-go.

I know, I know, there’s such a thing as foreplay. Just not in fiction. Not for me. Not when it comes to Chapter One, anyway.

I get that I’m probably missing out on some worthwhile reads due to my demands for immediate literary gratification. That’s fine by me. I have to draw the line somewhere to ensure I have time to write, time for friends and family, and time to binge-watch Breaking Bad over and over.

So what does it take for me to move past page one of a book? I’ll show you. Following are what I consider to be 25 of the best opening lines in literature, in no particular order:    

1) “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” –1984 by George Orwell

2) “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.” –The Stranger by Albert Camus

3) “It was a pleasure to burn.” –Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

4) “The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.” –Murphy by Samuel Beckett

5) “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” –One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez,

6) “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” –Neuromancer by William Gibson

7) “It was the day my grandmother exploded.” –The Crow Road by Iain M. Banks

8) “Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French.” –The Luck of the Bodkins by PG Wodehouse

9) “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” –The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

10) “Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.” –Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

11) “I am living at the Villa Gorghese. There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead.” –Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

12) “A girl always remembers the first corpse she shaves.” –Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

13) “I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn…” –The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster

14) “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith

15) “I had been making the rounds of the Sacrifice Poles the day we heard my brother had escaped. I already knew something was going to happen; the Factory told me.” –The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

16) “I am a sick man… I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts.” –Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

17) “He – for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it – was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.” –Orlando by Virginia Woolf

18) “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom.” –Beloved by Toni Morrison

19) “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.” –Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

20) “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” –Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

21) “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” –Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

22) “Like most people, I didn’t meet and talk to Rant Casey until after he was dead.” –Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

23) “On a very cold and lonely Friday last November, my father disappeared from the Dictionary.” –The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon

24) “None of the merry-go-rounds seem to work anymore.” –True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne

25) “Once upon a time, in a far off land, I was kidnapped by a gang of fearless yet terrified young men with so much impossible hope beating inside their bodies it burned their very skin and strengthened their will right through their bones.” –An Untamed State by Roxane Gay

26 – Bonus!) “Everyone in the subway car gasped when the man with the shaved head slid off his seat and crumpled to the floor. Everyone except Gage.” –Sick to Death by… ME! (Okay, so maybe it isn’t one of the best opening lines in literature, but it’s most definitely one of the best opening lines in literature I’VE written. The book just launched earlier this month – I hope you’ll have a look!) 

What are some of YOUR favorite opening lines in literature? Please share them in the comments section below.